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Green energy requires wasting much power
Credit: Voice of the People, Aug. 16, 2021 | The Press of Atlantic City | pressofatlanticcity.com ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Regarding the recent letter, “Many advantages from offshore wind power”:
The writer left out key facts about the five wind turbines that have been in Atlantic City since 2006.
They may produce “millions of kilowatt hours per year.” However, much if not most of that is wasted. Even more money and fossil fuels are wasted on back-up generators that are only needed for unpredictable and unreliable “green” energy.
The electric grid, like everything plugged into it, needs steady, reliable electric current. Your microwave needs 1,200 watts at 10 amps and 120 volts every time you use it.
After more than a hundred years, the best engineers still can’t store large amounts of electricity from wind, solar or lightning. Too much of that power must be “dumped” to keep the grid stable. Since wind turbines, like the wind, can stop or slow down at any time (like they did for a week last July), back-up nuclear or fossil fuel generators must run at all times – even when there is enough wind.
How much wind electricity and fossil fuels are wasted this way? It must be a lot. Otherwise green energy projects would pay for themselves. States with the most green energy would have the lowest taxes and electric bills – not the highest.
It seems that nobody wants us to know. The five wind turbines in Atlantic City are owned by two private companies. They report only how much money they pay the Atlantic County Utility Authorities for putting wind turbines on its land. They do not report how much of their power is dumped. Or how much money and fossil fuels the electric company must waste to back them up.
The professors and students at Stockton University’s $39.5-million Unified Science Center could easily do that research. Shouldn’t they do it before we build 99 wind turbines 15 miles out in the ocean at more than $16 million each?
Seth Grossman
Atlantic City
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